[tied] Re: The runic futark

--- In cybalist@..., Tore Gannholm <tore.gannholm@...> wrote:
>
> "An interesting new idea is by T A Markey "A Tale of Two Helmets:
The
> Negau A and B Inscriptions" in Journal of Indo-European Studies
29/1
> Spring 2001. Markey argues the case for a range of alphabetic
scripts
> having been developed in the Alpine regions, and the Camunic as the
> most likely original of the runic. Few scholars these days argue
for
> a North Italic origin for the futhark, so this is an interesting
> read."
>
> "The article is quite long (about 100 pages) and detailed, so I can
> do no more then sketch for you what he covers in great depth.
> Starting with the Negau helmets, Markey discusses the circumstances
> of their discovery - a hoard of 26 5th c. BC Etruscoid bronze helms
> unearthed in a Slovenian orchard in 1881. Nos. 1 and 22 have
> intelligible inscriptions ('A' and 'B' respectively), 9 others have
> unidentified graffitti. Only 23 are still known to exist (1
destroyed
> in discovery, 2 probably stolen). All are Vetulonian format helmets
> with a central ridge and projecting rim. 3 of 4 inscriptions on
> Helmet A are recognisably Celtic.
> Markey gives a handy tabulation of an array of Alpine alphabets in
> use prior to being swept away in the process of Romanisation:
Camunic
> (Val Camonica), Golaseccan, Lugano, Bolzano, Magre, Venetic,
> Marsilian, etc. The Negau B characters are then set out beside
these.
>
> I would add as a personal footnote that I still think that for
> Etruscan/Alpine alphabets to be the model for the runes this must
> have happened before c.100 BC as c.50 BC Roman script swept away
all
> the local traditions of the southern and western Alps. This pushes
> runic origins back maybe 150 years beyond the earliest inscriptions
> unless the Meldorf fibula is indeed runic."
>
>
> Tore

If Tauri (Crimea) -> Taurisci (Pannonia, Slovenia, Bohemia) ->
Hermunduri[Thuringi] (Thuringia) is true, they would have picked up
the alphabet in the vicinity of Slovenia (eastern Alps) around 50 BCE.

BTW, the Taurisci may have been filthy rich:

(Strabo iv.6.12, C 208)
"
Polybius says that in his time a gold mine was discovered not far
from Aquileia in the country of the Noric Taurisci, so easy to work
that when the earth on the surface was scraped off to the depth of
two feet the diggers found gold at once. The deposit was not deeper
than fifteen feet. The gold consisted partly of nuggets as big as a
bean or lupine, which were pure gold when the eighth part only had
been smelted off, and partly of stuff which required a good deal of
smelting but was very rich. After the Italians had been working it
together with the natives for two months, the price of gold
throughout Italy at once fell by one-third. But the Taurisci, when
aware of this, expelled the other workers and made a monopoly of it.
"
<http://www.ku.edu/history/index/europe/ancient_rome/E/Roman/Texts/Pol
ybius/34*.html>

On grave customs in the area at the time:
"
The graves of the Mala Kopasnica - Sase I and II type have been
reported from a number of sites in Moesia Superior, Dalmatia,
Pannonia, Dacia and Macedonia (cf. map. 19). The graves belonging to
Variant I have a large rectangular burial pit filled with the remains
of the pyre; the sides of the burial pit are burnt because of the
purification of the burial area. The graves belonging to Variant II
represent a more complex form of Variant I. Here the burial pit is
dug within a larger pit, so that a tomb a etage was formed. The sides
of the upper and lower pit were burnt. The body was cremated on the
ustrinum (ustrina have been found at Viminacium, Kosmaj and
Intercisa) and a large quantity of the remains of the pyre was placed
directly into the burial pit, without an urn. We suppose that these
graves derivate from the graves a etage known from the northern coast

of the Black Sea and the lower Danubian valley in prehistory,
although those graves held inhumation burials. Influences emanating
from that area also led to the appearance of the graves a etage of
the bustum type under mounds in the territory of Thrace; hence the
similarity between the Yugoslav and the Thracian examples should be
considered as a matter of converging, not analogous phenomena. The
graves of the Mala Kopasnica - Sase I and II type belong to the
period from the beginning of the 1st to the beginning of the 4th
century A.D. The earliest graves of this type have been discovered in
the territory of Yugoslavia (Scupi, Stobi), which may mean that this
was the original area of this form. Ethnically, these graves should
be probably associated with the Dacian-Misian-Dardanian cultural
sphere.

"

<http://www.rastko.org.yu/arheologija/ajovanovic-nekropole.html >

BTW
Pliny: Naturalis Historia 3.131

"
In hoc situ interiere per oram Irmene, Pellanon, Palsicium, ex
Venetis Atina et Caelina, Carnis Segesta et Ocra, Tauriscis Noreia.
"
Irmene?

Torsten

--